With a wry smile, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court administrator Dave Lawrence said the court’s civil e-filing steering committee would never have undertaken two-and-a-half years of intensive work if moving the civil trial division to e-filing wouldn’t increase the division’s efficiency.

But joking aside, the end is in sight for the e-steering committee of 24 that has explored since March 2005 the best ways to implement an online system for every piece of paper filed in the civil trial division.